Jake DeBrusk out sick as Canucks host Flames

The Canucks needed a clean night after Thursday's mess. Instead, they lost a top-6 winger at the morning skate.

Thomas Drance

@ThomasDrance

Jake DeBrusk showed up with an illness today at Rogers Arena, says Manny Malhotra. Confirms he won’t be in the lineup Saturday vs. Calgary. #Canucks

DeBrusk got to the rink and was sent home, so this is a bug, not an injury. That's the good news. The bad news is the timing. Vancouver is 1-1 and coming off a 9-7 loss to Edmonton at home, and Malhotra's message for this one was simple: "We obviously need to start a lot better than we did last game. That needs to be a mandate." Losing one of your scoring wingers a few hours before puck drop doesn't make that any easier.

Aatu Räty takes his spot and makes his season debut, centering Drew O'Connor and Brendan Gallagher. The rest of the forward group gets shuffled too: Marco Rossi moves to the wing with Elias Pettersson and Karlsson, and Paul Cotter moves up with Öhgren and Brock Boeser. That's a lot of moving pieces for a team that just gave up 9.

In net, it's Meriläinen. He was claimed off waivers from Ottawa in late September and made his Vancouver debut in relief Thursday, stopping 10 of 11. He took the starter's crease at the optional skate and was the first goalie off the ice, which is the usual tell.

Thomas Drance

@ThomasDrance

Meriläinen is the first #Canucks goalie off of the ice and is your projected starter Saturday vs. Calgary.

Calgary has problems of its own. The Flames are 0-1 after a 6-1 beating in Seattle, and Ryan Huska made a point by scratching Connor Zary. Othmann draws in for him and will also see time on the 2nd power-play unit, and Hanley replaces Kuznetsov on the blue line. Cooley makes his season debut in goal.

Eric Francis

@EricFrancis

Huska on decision to scratch Zary: “It's just understanding the importance of taking care of the puck. Connor's a good player -he'll get himself right back in there.” The lines for tonight here in Van: Gridin-Frost-Coronato Honzek-Backlund-Farabee Othmann-Strome-Sharangovich Tsyplakov-Pospisil-Klapka Bahl - Whitecloud Hanley-Nemec Middleton-Parekh Cooley starts Othmann will also see time on PP2.

"Taking care of the puck" is a nice way of saying Zary coughed it up once too often, and Huska wants everyone to notice after the Seattle game. It's the first of 4 meetings between these 2 this season, puck drops at 7 p.m. PT, and both coaches spent the morning trying to fix their teams. For the Canucks, the question is how fast DeBrusk's illness clears up. If it's a 1-day thing, nobody remembers this by next week. If it sticks around, Räty's audition gets longer and a top 6 that just got rearranged has to keep figuring it out.